“The privilege discourse says, “White people, you have a seat at the banquet table, and others do not. Furthermore, you are directly benefiting from the deprivation of others.” True as far as it goes, this narrative leaves out whether the banquet is really worth having. Blindly holding it to be a consummate feast, we assume that justice, equity, and advancement means to make room for everyone at our table, with its menu of modern medicine, free markets, mass schooling, and neoliberal democracy.”
Science & Philosophy
The Conspiracy Myth
The other day I was amused to read a critique of The Coronation in which the author was absolutely certain that I am a closet conspiracy theorist. He was so persuasive that I myself almost believed it. What is a conspiracy theory anyway? Sometimes the term is deployed against anyone who questions authority, dissents from dominant paradigms, or thinks that hidden interests influence our leading institutions.
The Coronation
Covid-19 is showing us that when humanity is united in common cause, phenomenally rapid change is possible. None of the world’s problems are technically difficult to solve; they originate in human disagreement. In coherency, humanity’s creative powers are boundless.
The Amazon: How do we heal a burning heart?
Like a lot of people, I’ve been deeply affected by what’s been happening in the Amazon in 2019.
Deforestation has reached double the rate of last year, as the red line of logging and fires, many of them set deliberately to clear land for soybeans and cattle, encroaches deeper and deeper into the heart of the Amazon rainforest.
Armed land-grabbers are dislocating Indigenous people and killing those who resist. Even legally protected lands are getting logged and destroyed. It’s just horrifying. And I feel, sometimes, these waves of helplessness, like watching a car wreck in slow motion. The grief is so strong – what do I do with it?
Opposition to GMOs is Neither Unscientific nor Immoral
Is the engineering of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) a dangerous technology posing grave risks to human and ecological health? Or are GMOs a potent new tool in the onward march of modern agricultural technology in its race to feed the world? In a recent opinion piece — Opposition to GMOs Isn’t Just Anti-Science, It’s Immoral— […]
Zika and the Mentality of Control
Until we begin thinking in holistic terms, we will lurch from one enemy to the next, forever suppressing symptoms even as we worsen the disease.